This invention relates to throw-away diapers or washable diapers which have incorporated in them or attached to them electrical signal means which will immediately give an audible or visual signal that the baby's diaper is wet.
Baby diaper rash is for the nursing mother the most enigmatic problem of infant rearing, and although the caring mother bears an emotional burden when hearing her baby cry, it is the baby who actually suffers pain and an acute experience of trauma, the cumulative effects of which during the first years after birth, as perceived by the young and impressionable subconscious mind, many psychologists suggest, is the prime neonatal originator of psychotic behavior that during later periods of the baby's life is the underlying case of an antisocial demeanor as developed and aggressively executed by many individuals towards fellow people.
In attempts to rid the basic dermis irritant, urine, from affecting the baby's skin, mothers often adhere to a strict, change of diaper, schedule. Although admittedly helpful, no real lessening of time wherein urine contacts with baby's skin is realized, because no prescribed timetable can fully anticipate an individual baby's changeable physical constitution. Frequently, a baby will micturate immediately after a change of diaper, and thus, unbeknown to the mother, be left to wallow in a soiled diaper until the next scheduled change of diaper, since until now a mother has had no way of knowing precisely when her baby has micturated, and consequently when her baby's diaper needed to be changed. The cliche spoken by a mother when her baby cries, in that "baby must be wet", clearly confirms that the mother has failed in her attempt to keep her baby dry, and free of baby diaper rash causing irritants, and that she therefore needs this present invention.
Previous inventions relating to human body fluid detecting devices have in the past only been directed towards meeting the brief requirements of subjects like children of higher age groups which were in need of an electrical alarm device to temporarily assist in training to overcome chronic bed wetting.
Of numerous prior systems, some are accessories to be placed between layers of bedding as indicated in U.S. Pat. Nos. 2,687,721, 2,812,757, 2,866,454, 2,907,841, while others are to be either temporarily secured to a garment as indicated in U.S. Pat. No. 3,530,855, or placed within the vacant space between the subject and the surrounding garment as indicated in U.S. Pat. Nos. 2,874,695, 3,441,019, 3,696,357, 3,864,676, 3,809,079, while another system is indicated in U.S. Pat. No. 3,460,123, wherein two wire mesh screens in a superimposed relation with a liquid permeable, electrical insulator between them, are permanently secured to a limited area of the crotch portion of an expensive and reusable tailored "jockey shorts" style undergarment, (a configuration similar in feature to a system indicated in U.S. Pat. No. 2,866,454, and not at all like in the present invention.)
Unfortunately, systems which are placed under layers of bedding or are placed outside of the gown of a patient or upon the seat of perhaps a wheel-chair are not suitable for use with babies in diapers, in that the diaper surrounding the baby, absorbs the escaping urine and thus prevents the released urine, from flowing onto the layers of bedding, and permeate through the material to cause an electrical short circuit across the switch terminals of an alarm circuit, which being normally open, would now become closed and thereby actuate an alarm. Moreover, the systems indicated in U.S. Pat. Nos. 2,687,721, 3,759,246, in particular are prone to signaling false alarms when creased and wrinkled, since the electrically conductive threads or strips, which are respectively sewn or painted on the sheet of absorptive material, are free and unrestricted to physically contact with each other and thereby, in the absence of moisture, electrically short circuit together when the material is crushed by a subject moving about thereupon.
Furthermore, by reason that modern throw-away baby diapers structurally include an electrically non-conductive, plastic-like outside covering to contain absorbed moisture within the fibers of the inner wadding material and away from outside of the diaper, systems as indicated in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,530,855, 4,106,001, where either electrode sensors may be secured to either side of a garment so that moisture permeating from the inner surface of the material to the outside surface of the same material electrically short circuits the electrodes together, or, where the electrodes are affixed to the outside surface of garment material, cease to electrically function when attached to modern structured throw-away diapers.
Other moisture indicating devices illustrated in U.S. Pat. Nos. 2,874,695, 3,441,019, 3,696,357, 3,864,676, 3,809,079, 4,191,950 relate to diapers as an auxiliary appurtenance rather than to genuinely integrated electrical micturition detecting throw-away baby diapers, and thus share in various limitations imposed by their very conceptions. Wherein Vaniman teaches of electrode incorporation into washable napkin arrangements which snap fasten to a body encircling belt, so to prevent the napkin from working its way out from between the user and the apart diaper, the complex stages of inter-napkin electrode constructions indicated, fail to realize systems suitable for use in high-speed disposable diaper mass-manufacturing. Referring to the Kilgore, Mozes and Macias' devices, it must be noted that those and similar aparatus require a few drops of urine fluid applied directly thereupon to function. Whereas linen diapers incur a momentary puddling condition during micturition thereby assisting the functioning of these electrical devices and obviating the need for critical positioning within the crotch, no such incident of fluid collection occurs within composite disposable diapers, as the included hydrophobic inner lining rapidly conducts escaping urine unidirectionally therethrough and over the entire surface area thereof, for example, as shown in U.S. Pat. No. 3,180,335, thus drawing away from the source of micturition and towards the outer sheet, the necessary drops of urine required to operate these separately sheathed and independent electrical devices in a constant and reliable manner. Also, previous systems which include a radio transmitter-receiver link to connect sections of an alarm as indicated in U.S. Pat. No. 3,460,123, have failed to realize a construction suitable to radiate an alarm signal, and thus may interfere with baby's movements, operate unreliably over a limited range, or not at all, and are therefore substantially ineffectual. Therefore, the objects of these and other past systems adapted for portable use, all similarly lack in anticipatory teachings of desirable combinations of elements and features which would provide a suitable system directed towards the specialized needs in neonatal hygiene practice; and have failed to become commercialized or achieved any success in the market place.